Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community
| dc.contributor.author | Kahn, Lauren | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2016-05-08T19:43:03Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2016-05-08T19:43:03Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2007 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2016-05-08T19:41:16Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | This paper explores decision-making around sexual abstinence among white, English-speaking adolescent girls in Fish Hoek, a middle-class neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa. The girls participated in a focus group and 1-2 individual, semi-structured interview/s. Sexual abstinence is found to be a strategy geared towards promoting emotional and relational well-being, rather than primarily geared towards promoting physical health and well-being. Decision-making around sexual abstinence is found to be value-laden, bound up in the meaning and value the participants attach to sex and sexual relationships, values and ideology surrounding marriage, as well as religious values and moral codes. Adolescent sexual decision-making is found to be socially mediated by dominant peer group sexual norms which value sexual promiscuity over sexual abstinence. Pressure to conform to dominant sexual norms and practices is found to be part of a nexus of social pressures facing young people more generally. Supportive family environments and relationships with affirming peers are found to play a pivotal role in sustaining counter-normative strategies such as sexual abstinence. Problematically, girls who engage in counter-normative sexual strategies such as abstinence experience ambivalence and insecurities which can feed into and reproduce sexual norms which devalue abstinence. Furthermore, counter-normative sexual strategies are underpinned by, and reproduce, other problematic hegemonic sexual discourses. Designing interventions that are geared towards sustaining positive sexual decision-making, and 'safe' sexual practices in the long-term, and not solely towards changing 'risky' sexual practices, is recommended. | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.apacitation | Kahn, L. (2007). <i>Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community</i> University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Centre for Social Science Research(CSSR). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19500 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.chicagocitation | Kahn, Lauren <i>Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community.</i> University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Centre for Social Science Research(CSSR), 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19500 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.citation | Kahn, L. (2007). Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community. Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.ris | TY - Working Paper AU - Kahn, Lauren AB - This paper explores decision-making around sexual abstinence among white, English-speaking adolescent girls in Fish Hoek, a middle-class neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa. The girls participated in a focus group and 1-2 individual, semi-structured interview/s. Sexual abstinence is found to be a strategy geared towards promoting emotional and relational well-being, rather than primarily geared towards promoting physical health and well-being. Decision-making around sexual abstinence is found to be value-laden, bound up in the meaning and value the participants attach to sex and sexual relationships, values and ideology surrounding marriage, as well as religious values and moral codes. Adolescent sexual decision-making is found to be socially mediated by dominant peer group sexual norms which value sexual promiscuity over sexual abstinence. Pressure to conform to dominant sexual norms and practices is found to be part of a nexus of social pressures facing young people more generally. Supportive family environments and relationships with affirming peers are found to play a pivotal role in sustaining counter-normative strategies such as sexual abstinence. Problematically, girls who engage in counter-normative sexual strategies such as abstinence experience ambivalence and insecurities which can feed into and reproduce sexual norms which devalue abstinence. Furthermore, counter-normative sexual strategies are underpinned by, and reproduce, other problematic hegemonic sexual discourses. Designing interventions that are geared towards sustaining positive sexual decision-making, and 'safe' sexual practices in the long-term, and not solely towards changing 'risky' sexual practices, is recommended. DA - 2007 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town J1 - Centre for Social Science Research LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2007 T1 - Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community TI - Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19500 ER - | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19500 | |
| dc.identifier.vancouvercitation | Kahn L. Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community. 2007 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19500 | en_ZA |
| dc.language | eng | en_ZA |
| dc.publisher.department | Centre for Social Science Research(CSSR) | en_ZA |
| dc.publisher.faculty | Faculty of Humanities | en_ZA |
| dc.publisher.institution | University of Cape Town | |
| dc.rights | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) | * |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ | en_ZA |
| dc.source | Centre for Social Science Research | |
| dc.source.uri | http://www.cssr.uct.ac.za/ | |
| dc.subject.other | Sexual abstinence | |
| dc.subject.other | White, English-speaking girls | |
| dc.subject.other | Cape Town community | |
| dc.title | Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community | en_ZA |
| dc.type | Working Paper | en_ZA |
| uct.type.filetype | Text | |
| uct.type.filetype | Image | |
| uct.type.publication | Research | en_ZA |
| uct.type.resource | Research paper | en_ZA |